Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
TWO YEARS AGO
‘How long?’ I demanded, my gaze inadvertently drifting away from him.
My eyes landed, rather sadistically, on one of our wedding photos perched on one of the shelves.
There we were, twenty-three years old, each flanked by our respective parents, all big, dumb, innocent smiles.
I was never going to be able to look at that photo and not feel pure hot-blooded rage again.
Greta storming out of the café and into the crowds and now this; this was really turning out to be quite a shitty night in the life of Ruth.
‘We…’ he began to speak, but faltered, unable to finish his sentence.
I forced myself to look at him to see what had interrupted him.
But all I saw was his whole body shaking with emotion, his eyes bloodshot red as he tried, and failed, to keep the tears at bay.
He placed two fingers on the bridge of his nose and squeezed as if he was trying to pinch the plumbing to the tear duct.
‘Nothing has happened. We… I haven’t… done anything. ’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’ I snapped, the rage still piping hot in my chest. ‘Good for you, Ben. Does that make you feel morally superior? That you managed to control yourself not to…’ I couldn’t even finish the sentence; I didn’t even want to breathe those words, that made me feel sick, into existence.
‘No. No, of course not, I’m just trying to say…’ he began.
‘God, I… I can’t even look at you, Ben,’ I interrupted, cutting him off before he could string another stupid, whimpering sentence together. Just because I didn’t want to speak, didn’t mean I wanted to hear his voice.
I averted my eyes from him again, my chest twisting with an unfamiliar, excruciating pain.
So, this was what heartbreak felt like I guess, I had never really experienced it before.
To me, it was a stinging, relentless tearing that left me feeling equal parts numb, hollow, but also overflowing with anger.
Suddenly, all the strange interactions over the past six months made sense: his vague excuses, the friends he was hanging out with that he couldn’t quite name, the signs I had ignored because I trusted him.
I imagined that people in the future would tell me it wasn’t my fault, that he was completely to blame.
But I still felt stupid. Stupid for not confronting him sooner, for brushing it all aside and burying that suspicion deep down in my gut because I didn’t want to argue with him.
‘So,’ I said, summoning the courage to ask the question I dreaded. ‘What is this conversation?’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, his voice still raspy as he paced slow circuits around our living room.
‘You know exactly what I mean,’ I said, staring at him as he faced away from me to glance out the window. ‘Is this an “I’m leaving you” conversation or a “please, please forgive me, take me back” sort of conversation?’
Despite everything I had just learned, part of me still hoped it was the latter; I prayed and begged it was the latter.
Ben sighed and pivoted his body slowly to face me again, the same moronic expression still fixed onto his stupid face. That was all it took for me to understand what he was failing miserably to say.
All I could think to do now was leave. So, I turned away from him and grabbed my handbag, stuffing anything I could think of into it – clothes, pants, deodorant, phone chargers – good luck messaging your boyfriend without any phone battery, Ben – whatever was within reach of my hand was being furiously tossed and squashed into it.
The more crap I crammed in, the more my knock-off designer bag looked moments away from complete structural collapse.
‘Ruth, please,’ he said, his voice almost strengthening a little now as if he was trying to exude some authority to stop me. ‘Please, don’t go. I’ll go. I should be the one to go.’
‘You really think I want to stay in this house now? The house we built our lives together in, after what you’ve just told me!
’ I grabbed the framed photo of our wedding I had been looking at earlier, hurled it to the ground and thrusted my socked foot down on it.
The glass cracked instantly and I’m sure some of the shattered edges went up and pierced into the sole of my foot, but frankly I was still too angry to care.
‘Ruth, stop, you’re going to hurt yourself!’ Ben exclaimed, walking towards me, faking some kind of concern for me. He didn’t care for me, though, he would never have done this if he actually did.
‘I’m going to Greta’s,’ I spat at him, my voice hoarse from all the screaming and shouting I had just done. ‘She can talk to you about picking my stuff up.’
‘Ruth, come on,’ he pleaded, the desperation and exhaustion he was feeling clear from every word he spoke. ‘Please don’t leave by yourself. Not right now. Go if you want but let me drive you or call a cab or something first. It’s not safe with the TellTale Killer!’
‘No,’ I shouted, grabbing the TV remote and throwing it into my overstuffed bag, along with the hardwood penis ornament we got in Greece that I hated. I didn’t really know what I was going to do with that, so I flung it in his direction.
‘There is a killer on the loose, Ruth.’ Ben vociferating again, gesticulating wildly. ‘This isn’t safe. Please.’
‘I don’t care. Just looking at you makes me feel sick,’ I shouted, throwing open the front door and slamming it shut behind me with all the force I had. The Christmas wreath, previously perched on the door, went flinging into the bushes from the impact.
Yanking my phone from my pocket, I scrambled to call Greta.
I’m sure she was still furious with me from earlier tonight, after what I had asked her at Sabroso.
She still hadn’t responded to my apology text, but this was now beyond our petty arguments.
Extenuating circumstances and all that, surely.
She had to put her anger at me aside for this, I know I would for her.
The phone rang and rang, but she didn’t answer. My rage only growing, I fired off a quick text as I continued storming down the street, desperate to get as much distance between Ben and I as possible.
Look, I’m so sorry for tonight, but please, I really need to talk to you.
I could see something in my peripheral vision and glancing over my shoulder, I saw Ben stepping out of the house and beginning to follow me.
‘You don’t have to speak to me,’ he called after me, his voice loud enough to reach me fifty or so feet ahead of him. ‘But I can’t let you be out here by yourself. Please, just let me drive you somewhere.’
‘Fuck off!’ I roared back at him as loud as the roughness in my throat would allow.
I called Greta again, hoping my text would put my incessant calling into context.
I picked up the pace of my footsteps to try and outwalk my soon-to-be ex-husband as I kept my phone compressed tightly against my cheek, waiting for the moment the aggravating buzzing sound of an outgoing call would finally end. Still nothing.
Please, please, I need to talk to you. Ben has been cheating on me.
My fingers were fumbling over the touch keys of my phone as my walk became dangerously close to a jog to outrun Ben’s much longer legs.
But the messages were still only showing as delivered so her phone must not have been out of charge?
Maybe she was in the loo, but then everyone brought their phone to the loo with them, what else would they do with their time?
But just as I was about to try sending yet another text, the read receipts popped up.
She was seeing my messages, she was reading them.
My breath faltered as I stared at the screen, waiting for her response, any kind of response from her. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing. Not even the little icon showing she was typing a message. She must just be… staring at them.
‘Please, Greta,’ I begged under my frantic breath, my finger hovering over the call button again.
I waited until I reached the end of the cul-de-sac before I jabbed my finger into the phone icon again, pushing the phone tight to my ear. I glanced over my shoulder to see Ben was still behind me like he was some kind of covert bodyguard for a billionaire.
‘Leave me alone,’ I screamed at him as, at last, the ringing finally came to an abrupt stop, and I heard the small pocket of silence after she’d picked up, but instead of her sweet-sounding voice who would apologise for not answering and then tell me everything was going to be all right, all I heard was this long, low, croaky breathing on the other end of the line.
‘Greta?’ I asked.
Still, all I heard was wheezy, raspy breaths. Was this her idea of some kind of joke?
‘Are you kidding me? Seriously? Are you kidding me?’ I snapped, my voice trembling with hurt and fury.
‘After all that, now you pick up? You leave me stranded in the middle of Hammersmith with a killer on the loose, ignore all my calls and texts, and then just – what? Decide to answer? You know, you can be an absolutely terrible, terrible friend sometimes, Greta.’
The moment the words left my mouth, I deeply regretted them. I knew I was just projecting onto her, letting all my anger at Ben spill out onto Greta; she didn’t deserve that.
‘Hello, Ruth,’ said a voice. A deep, baritone male voice.
‘Who is this?’ I asked, frenzied, as my nape prickled with a sudden, bristling chill.
‘You know, you really should be nicer to your friends, Ruth; you never know when it’s going to be the last time you’ll speak to them.’